


Breaking Point

by Chris_Quinton



Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: M/M, Never keep Methos waiting, Paris (City), antiques
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:35:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27121888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chris_Quinton/pseuds/Chris_Quinton
Summary: Some people [Duncan MacLeod] will go to ridiculous lengths to outwit an old fox...
Relationships: Duncan MacLeod/Methos (Highlander)
Kudos: 22





	Breaking Point

**Author's Note:**

> Yet another old HL fanfic...

He was late.

Methos looked at his watch. Again. MacLeod was now forty-seven minutes behind time, and Methos had a pretty damned good idea why.

He scowled into his empty coffee cup and signalled the waiter for a refill. This would be his fourth. And the annoying thing was that it had been MacLeod who'd asked for the meeting, MacLeod who'd asked him to go along with him to the auction to check out the 8th century missal. And MacLeod was now--he checked his watch--fifty-one minutes late.

Giving an angry snort, Methos took out his cell phone and punched in numbers. This time the call was answered.

"Hello--" began a voice, husky with sleep.

"This is your one and only wake-up call," he snapped. "If you don't get your arse over here in the next half an hour, I will go to that auction, buy the fucking missal in your name and shove it up your fucking arse page by fucking page!" He cut the call and stared at the small, silvery thing in his hand in shock. The ultimatum had gone from brain to mouth so fast he hadn't known what he was going to say until he heard the words. Then he shrugged impatiently. Who the hell cared?

Half an hour and one minute later, Methos stalked from the restaurant and took a taxi though the cold, fog-bound Parisian streets to the auction rooms. He didn't bother to look at the missal in question. He did not give a flying fuck if it was genuine, a medieval forgery or a modern one. Its fate, and MacLeod's, was sealed.

For once, the ranks of ancient books and manuscripts did not snare Methos. He had one goal in mind and he was relentless. He sat in the middle of the front row, semi-sprawled, arms folded across his chest and pinned the auctioneer with his narrow-eyed hunter's gaze. And waited.

When the missal was carried to the lectern by the white-gloved assistant, Methos didn’t give the thing a glance. It was beautiful, but he already knew that. MacLeod had shown him the pictures in the catalogue--tooled and gilded leather, colours not much faded, and the pages inside were still bright jewels of art--and the bidding started.

When it ended, Methos, or rather, Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, was the owner of a book that may or may not be what it purported to be. Fortunately, the auctioneer knew MacLeod, had sold to and for him many times over the last fifteen years or so, and had no problems with the letter of authorisation that let Monsieur Pierson bid and buy on MacLeod's behalf. He wasn't to know it was a letter Methos had carefully forged during his half-hour wait in the restaurant.

With the missal wrapped in layers of tissue and strong brown paper, Methos took another taxi to the mooring below Notre Dame, paid it off, and walked towards the river. The fog was thicker here, skeining from the leaden water to hang dense in the still air. It was approaching two-thirty in the afternoon, the streetlamps bled an eerie glow through the murk, and it was cold.

Methos ignored the chill. He felt the bone-deep rush of immortal Presence as he approached the gangplank. No way of guessing, of course, if it was MacLeod or if he was alone. Amanda was supposed to be on her way to Cannes, but it would be like her to decide to stay in MacLeod's bed. Not that it mattered. If she was around, she could have a couple of pages inserted where they'd do the most good as well. Or maybe he'd just chuck her in the river. That would cool her hots a little. The Seine in winter was not a pleasant prospect. The anger that had simmered all through the wait and the auction hit rapid boil again and his smile was vicious.

But he was not an intemperate fool--unlike some. "It's me," he yelled before he opened the door and went down into the dim cocoon of warmth that was the barge. On the dais, most of the candles had burned out, but a few still pooled golden light across the cream silk sheets. The scent of incense, not sex, tinted the air--amber and sandalwood with the faint echo of a heady musk.

"G'morning...." It was a sleepy murmur from the bed, and Methos swore.

"I knew it!" He strode forward and kicked at the wet towel on the floor, glaring at the man spread belly-down on the bed. At least Duncan I-Think-With-My-Balls MacLeod had started to get himself dressed. As far as the boxers, at least. They were a dark blue, Methos noticed absently, and looked to be a size too large: they bagged unflatteringly around an arse he knew to be lean and powerful with muscle.

"Ughn," MacLeod said intelligently and sank back to sleep.

Methos stood there, clutching the missal to his chest. MacLeod's skin gleamed with the same richness as the sheets beneath him, his hair was tangled black satin in the dimness and the lashes of the only eye Methos could see were a sable fan on the cheekbone. The athlete's body was limned with candlelight and he looked good enough to eat. A gourmet's feast. Inside the constriction of his jeans, Methos' flesh swelled, and hot tension throbbed through his blood, suggesting all kinds of possibilities.

His fury died to a familiar hungry despair. For a long time he'd watched MacLeod, had wanted him. But MacLeod just didn't watch him in quite the same way. Sometimes Methos had thought MacLeod was aware of him and of the need, was beginning to share that need, but somehow there was always Amanda or-- He struggled to remember names for a moment, then shrugged. Usually Amanda. They'd have a good time, the three of them, sometimes four if Joe was around, then MacLeod and Amanda would start the eye-contact and the heavy breathing and Methos had always made himself scarce. Just like last night.

It was the sensible thing to do.

After all, careful and repeated studies of MacLeod's Chronicles had not revealed any 100% certain accounts of sexual liaisons with men, and while Methos knew that if he put his mind to it he could seduce the younger immortal out of his clothes and out of his mind, that would not necessarily be smart. MacLeod didn't go in for casual one night stands. The man committed on more than one level. Amanda was a good example of that. Okay, MacLeod wasn't in love with her, but he cared deeply, passionately, about the bloody-minded vixen.

But who in their right mind wanted to commit to another immortal? Been there, done that....

Which reminded him of the days when he had not been Adam Pierson, or Benjamin Adams, or any other persona save the one he'd been born with. When he'd committed to a trio of immortals for a millennium. When he'd taken what he wanted, used it, broke it, discarded it, and laughed.

The devil in his soul stirred and stretched, and he smothered it with ice.

Methos sighed and once more accepted defeat. He turned away and put the wrapped book on the coffee table, then froze where he stood.

MacLeod had sighed as well, and the slither of the sheets as he moved was a gentle susurration. Sighed and whispered a name. "...'Manda...."

The rage surged back, and with a distant, self-mocking humour, he recognised its pedigree: Fury, out of Jealousy, sired by Lust. Methos spun round, all caution scorched away, and struck.

"You bastard!" he yelled. He grabbed an outflung arm and wrenched MacLeod over onto his back, dropping astride him to grip MacLeod's ribs with his knees and pin his wrists on the pillows. "You motherless son of an arrogant cocksure tunnel-visioned impervious thick-as-shit--" He thrust his head down and took that startled mouth in a devouring kiss, using teeth as well as tongue and tasted blood. "I've had enough of this game-playing, you hear me?" he panted. "No more! I will not have it! You are mine, Duncan MacLeod! No one else's--you belong to me! And I'll take your head myself before I share you with anyone!"

"Meth--"

"Shuttup!" He kissed him again, seeking the blood, hearing a grunt of pain and relishing it. Then he realised MacLeod wasn't fighting, and the mouth he was attacking possessed a tongue that was doing some duelling of its own--

Methos' anger cooled rapidly and segued into bemusement. He broke the kiss and sat back on MacLeod's belly. MacLeod was smiling. The smile became a grin and the stomach Methos was sitting on heaved with silent laughter.

"Got you," MacLeod whispered in a delirious triumph. He moved, but not to struggle. It was a slow, sensuality that arched his back a little, and his dark eyes were half-lidded, a perilous sultry glow in their depths that might not have been a reflection of the candlelight.

"Bastard!" Methos hissed the word this time, drawing out the sibilance with a venom that surprised himself, but MacLeod either did not see the danger, or did not heed it.

"I had to be sure," he said, and twisted his wrists against Methos' thumbs, breaking the hold. He reached up and trailed fingers through Methos' short hair, traced nose and cheekbone and lips. The other hand was working its way under Methos' sweater, seeking the waistband and zipper of his jeans. "Sure that you wanted this as much as I did. I'm tired of the games, as well, Methos."

"You could have said--" And he broke off with a gasp as MacLeod's hand slipped inside his jeans and cupped his erection, thumb stroking lightly over the dampening fabric of his boxers.

"So could you," MacLeod murmured. "For God's sake," he went on, desperation and desire roughening his voice to a deep velvet growl that burned along every nerve-ending in Methos' body and fired its lightning in his groin. "If you want me so much, get rid of these bloody clothes!"

Methos dragged off his coat and threw it away, ignoring the heavy clang that was his hidden broadsword making a possibly damaging impact. Sweater and t-shirt followed it, and he smacked MacLeod's fumbling hands away from his jeans. Quickly he rolled off the bed and shoved jeans and boxers down and off, taking socks and shoes with them, not removing his eyes from MacLeod the whole time.

And MacLeod shed his own boxers with a languorous grace that would have put a high-class stripper to shame, and lay there, ostensibly relaxed. But Methos could see the fine tremor of tension in the long muscles, and the way the man's white teeth caught at his swollen lower lip. Uncertainty or anticipation? It didn't matter. There was no going back now. His eyes were drawn to the proud flesh that rested against MacLeod's belly, flushed rose and glistening against the darkness of body-hair and tanned skin. No uncertainty there. The scent of musk that threaded through the incense was MacLeod, he realised, and Methos' hunger was a low keening in his throat that deepened MacLeod's eyes to black.

They came together like iron to magnet, like flame to tinder, two strong men unwilling to give quarter. Later there would be a time for tenderness, for exploration, for learning each other's bodies and pleasures. This was about hunger and need, about claiming, marking: a mating of predators.

Methos pushed his knee between McLeod's thighs and dropped his full weight on the man. He got a double grip on McLeod's long hair, part of his mind registering the heavy silken warmth of it, and trapped the man's head. MacLeod's hands raked down his shoulders and back, clamped hard on his buttocks and welded their bodies closer still. Their erections were trapped between them, between hard-muscled bellies slick with sweat and precome, and Methos could feel the heat of MacLeod's shaft pressed beside his own.

Desire was a rage in his blood, searing through him in a tidal surge that threatened every one of his carefully constructed barriers. MacLeod was imprinted along the length of his body: the strength of corded muscles overlying the perfect framework of bone, the texture of sweat-embossed skin cross-grained with a fine pelt of dark hair on breast and belly and groin. And a mouth so shaped it could surely seduce the most stoic of celibates. Which Methos was not and had never been.

He sought that mouth again, not for the blood this time, but the sharp sweet tang of quicken-fire that transmuted the kiss to a flare of sensation that struck through every erogenous zone he possessed. MacLeod cried out and Methos drank the word--his name--with the breath, and began to move in an escalating rhythm.

MacLeod's body shuddered under him, hips driving up to meet and match the grinding need, and still Methos did not break the kiss. All too soon climax began as a tingling rush in his limbs, surging to his groin with the inevitability of the moon-driven tides. It peaked with shattering convulsions that left him gasping for breath and boneless in MacLeod's arms, only peripherally aware that the same seismic shock had ripped through his lover.

His lover.

"Mine," Methos whispered with intense satisfaction.

MacLeod's hands were still locked on his ass with a grip that would leave bruises. "No," he murmured. "You're mine, now."

Methos thought about that, and decided he didn't have the energy to argue it at the moment. "How about," he drawled, "we agree to agree we're both right?"

"Mmmm," said MacLeod. It was a purr of appreciation that seemed to vibrate through MacLeod's body and into his own, and was assent enough for Methos. Then he remembered the missal, and somehow found enough coordination to stagger as far as the coffee table and return with the wrapped book. He moulded his body along MacLeod's and watched with breath-held anticipation as the man carefully removed the paper and tissue.

"Beautiful," MacLeod said, voice soft and reverent. "You bought this--you shouldn't--"

"I didn't," Methos said demurely.

MacLeod's gaze changed from limpid delight to katana-sharp intensity. Then he snatched the envelope that had been on top of the missal and tore it open. He unfolded the bill of sale--made out in his name--and his jaw dropped.

" _How much?"_ he screeched.

…End…


End file.
